LOST LIMBS THAT ACHE.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18150, 13 August 1924, Page 13

LOST LIMBS THAT ACHE.

It is a curious thing, says tlio "Daily News," that, a man may feel pain in fingers or toes with which he had long parted company, but the explanation is simple. Tho plan of the nervous system is not unlike that of electric bells in a large house. £am is a danger signal which calls attention to the approach of same en«my, and,each nerve twig over tho surface' of tho body registers its warning m the-brain where there ■» an.indicator •to show the site of the pain- Tn«S nerve trunks which convey the messages to the brain lio snug among the soft tissues of tho limbs .and body; tbey have no feeling of their own; l « would servo no useful purpose, if .the? had. But if by chance a nervo trunfc is pinched or pulled the pain is telb at the bell-push and not m the wire, Henco the pressure of o crutch under tho arm or of the hard edge of a sea* on the l«s gives riao to M pina and needles" in the hand or foot. Now when a limb hj«« been arnvptated and the nerves cut across, tad nerve fibres always sprout from tho cut ends in the forlorn attempt to connect uo again with tho beU-pt»li T which is no longer there. And it is these bunches of loose enda which aW so apt to be caught up in tho ecar or to be pressed upon by th© artificial limb. Everything depends upon having a well-fitting bucket to the new leg, in which the pressure is taken, evenlv by the whole stump. As a role, with "time and practice, tho result is good, and nothing more is-felt than an occasional twinge to remind the bearer of the toes which wero one* hi» own. Now and then a further email operation may bo necessary to free tho nerve fibrils from the ecar.